The writings of George Washington; being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. By Jared Sparks.

PART I.1 THE FRENCH WAR. 231
TO RICHARD WASHINGTON, MERCHANT, LONDON.
Fort Loudoun, 15 April, 1757.
D1EAR SIR,
After so long silence it may be expected, that I
should introduce this letter with an apology for my
seeming neglect. I own, Sir, it is necessary to urge
something in my defence, and what can be so proper as
the truth?
I have been posted, then, fobr twenty months past
upon our cold and barren frontiers, to perform, I think I
may say, impossibilities; that is, to protect from the cruel
incursions of a crafty, savage enemy a line of inhabitants,
of more than three hundred and fifty miles in extent,
with a force inadequate to the task. By this means I
am become in a manner an exile, and seldom informed
of those opportunities, which I might otherwise embrace,
of corresponding with my friends.
Experience has convinced every thinking man in this
colony, that we must bid adieu to peace and safety
whilst the French are allowed to possess the Ohio, and
to practise their arts among the numerous tribes of Indian nations that inhabit those regions, and that it must
be attended with an expense infinitely greater to defend
our possessions, as they ought to be defended against
the skulking enemy, than to remove the cause of our
groundless fears, by the reduction of Fort Duquesne.
had no reason to expect a warm friend in the Governor of Virginia at the
councils in Philadelphia. He did not fail, therefore, to embrace the opportunity, reluctantly as it had been granted, of being present and attending
personally to the interests of his regiment, and to affairs in which he was
so deeply concerned. He was consulted by Lord Loudoun, in regard to
the future disposition of the forces on the frontiers of the southern colonies.
But after all, he was not successful in his wish to have the Virginia regiment put upon the same footing as the regular army, and to obtain King's
commissions for himself and his officers.